A review by jillcdunn
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus

3.0

I first heard Dr. Yunus at my university convocation. His ideas about micro lending are intriguing and exciting to me. I enjoyed the first two thirds of the book but ended up putting it aside for several months. When I picked it up to finish I remembered why I had put it down. While the idea of micro loans is exciting to me, Yunus’s writing wasn’t. The last third of the book was a bit of a slog to get through. I liked him when I heard him speak, but the tone of his writing seemed to be lacking humility and quite self-congratulatory. He lost me further when he started to get political. I feel like solving the world’s poverty issues should be something that transcends party lines.
However, the story of Grameen Bank and micro loans for the world’s poorest families is ultimately a story of hope and possibilities and that makes this book worth the time in my estimation.